No Till discussion

Any one care to share thier trial's, failures, success's, and advice with the rest of us? I succesfully no tilled corn into soybeans stubble( a chopper on combine is big help, soybeans straw was a hindrance), and Soybeans into Oat stubble and C/C, and also into soybean stubble. Actually great yeilds on the corn, Great yeilds on the beans no tilled into lighter soils, but yeilds were below average in areas that had a high clay content. Did not use no till coulters, just row cleaners, and good sharp openers. Did 2x2 starter on corn, and 2x2 fertilzer for the soybean requirements. Next year will be trying some no till beans into 150-180BPA corn stalks. Any help on that would be great. Nothing fancy , just a well maintained JD 7000 planter.

I will be eagerly waiting for responses on this, I am in Central MN also, and have had the same ideas. Same planter too. The locals think I'm nuts, they all say we need tillage to make the ground black so we get good warm soil temps in the spring. I'm real curious to hear others no till experience in Central MN.

I can say, all the farmers around me use a disk to prepare soil. When they are done, there is very little stubble. Occasionally they use a chisel plow/disk.

Some farmers say no till or minimum till saves on fuel.

If you are not familiar with Gabe Brown from N. Dakota, you really should listen to one of his presentations. He is doing all no-till and cover crops to the max, and has some really good evidence on improved soil health and structure. Here is a link to one of his talks. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yPjoh9YJMk

I live in a high clay soil, cold wet ground as well, there is almost zero notill ever in my county.

No one uses a disk either, except special cases, thry pack wet clay too bad.

A few folks try notill from time to time, and it even works sometimes for a year or two, but in the long run, our soils and ground water table and climate makes it fail in this back yard. would be nice to save the fuel and iron and time.so if your conditions are better for it, keep chipping at it!

I think strip till is a nice compromise, even that is difficult in my area but it is bring tried a bit more seriously.

Paul

I have and still try once and a while to notill corn on bean stubble.

It is always my poorest field of corn. In side by side test one pass with a field cultivator will out yield notill by 15 plus bushels per acre. Deep tillage with a subsoiler is even more of a difference than notill.

Now soybeans on corn stubble will yield just about the same as tillage. But not quite the same.

Gary

I farm In Daviess Co Ky on the Ohio river , 12 yrs ago I bought a 5100 6 row planter with splitter. I told my dad we are going full time not ill. I can tell you it's the best. Decision I ever made. On my ground I can now plant 2 weeks earlier and ground moisture last 10 more days in dry conditions. We apply our own poultry litter and I'm sure this has greatly improved our soil health. 4 yrs ago we purchase a 12/23 kinze this I believe raised our yields also the kinze cuts the corn stalks better than old planter. One thing we have done the last 2 yrs is run an old fold up roller over our corn stalks about a month after harvest. If I had I suggestion for someone wanting to look into not ill I would suggest looking into the national no till conference I no someone that has been to everyone and says it's the best money he spends all yr. I would say nothing is perfect but for me no till is as close as I can get

I'm not too far from you, but some wetter, and there is very little no-til here. The ground stays too cold and wet many years. Some will put corn into soy ground sometimes. There is one guy that has been doing it for a while not far away, but many years he has the worst crops in the area. I'm not sure if he saves enough on tillage to compensate or not. On dry years he does well tho.

In my area of southwest Missouri corn is planted the last week of March and the first week of April to
beat the July drought and heat.....The soil is often cold and damp..No-till corn has never consistently
done well here..Its tough to get a stand and to get the corn off to a fast start..This year some no-till corn
was torn up..Most farmers here hit the ground with a field cultivator to dry out the ground and warm
it up..No-till beans work much better here..

Google soil scientist Ray Archuletta about no-til, has some very interesting seminars. Cover crops are very beneficial too..

I switched to all no till in 1983. I was told to expect lower yields the first few years and then they would come back up. Wrong on my ground. I got tired of poor yields and deep ripped the fall of 1988. You talk about pulling hard!!!! My corn yields jumped over 25 bushels for the next five year average. Soybeans yields jumped a little but not much.

I do not no till any corn now but do no till about half the soybeans. Most of my ground gets covered with manure and I need the tillage to incorporate the manure.

Tried it some years back. Yields really suffer under his ideas. Corn goes in late, and there is a lot of extra labor involved. Otherwise, he had a few good demos.....

I have been no tilling since about 1975. Most of my ground is in continuous corn, some chopped, some combined. I use a tillage radish- crimson clover mix on chopped ground and rye on combined ground. It's burned off as early as I can get on the ground in the spring with liquid N and Acuron, planted as soon as I can and gets an over the top with drops of liquid N and glyphosate. We were shy on rain this year and still produced 181 bpa. I ain't a gonna complain about that. The soils are much lighter, and higher in OM. No til coupled with these newer seeds is really pushing top yields.

I live in SE NE on a dryland farm. I been no tilling for 25yrs and working with covercrops for 10. no ditches. out yield the neighbors hands down with much less inputs. put my farm for rent on shares and had 23 bidders and 100 guys who were scared to come throw there hat in the ring. If your not seeing jumps in yields and lower input costs; the blame goes directly onto your shoulders. your doing something wrong or u got bad info. I've seen every mistake imaginable. planter discs with 1/2in gap, planting much to shallow, forgetting to spread the trash behind the combine OR using row cleaners to wipe away the trash that protects the plant are just 4 of 50. Plant rye in the fall after u fill your ditches with a scaper, not drag your topsoil into the ditches. I plant early and have never lost a seed to cold and damp weather. my neighbors who can't figure it out just call me lucky but are too bull headed to come ask for help. I can no-till into any soil anywhere. don't whine to me, get out the and figure out what u did WRONG! do your experimenting next to the road where all the neighbors can see it. if they need info, tell them ONCE!

Easy to say if you don't have to deal with cold wet soils. I would love to see you come up to my area and give it a shot, you wouldn't be the first to come thinking you were going to teach the local hicks something. I have a brother and nephews who live in Eastern Ne. and they no-til too. They are smart enough not to come up here and try it tho.

Been no tilling corn and soys here in Ontario for about 20 years, yields are at least par with anyone else. I spread solid manure and plow ground where small grains are going to be the next crop simply because I have not been able to make solid manure and no til work together well.Ben

We have no-tilled for 31 seasons on some of our ground, and it has been the best management change we have ever made. We have some advantages... good drainage, and we operate a dairy, so we have manure. Yes, manure is your friend in no-till. It will stimulate a lot of earthworms, and they do a lot of natural tillage, much more effective than any tillage tool or subsoiler.
We started in 1986 with a 7000 planter planting into alfalfa sod. We had some home made coulters attatched to the planter made from plow coulters, and no special closing wheels. It worked wonderfully, and we have not plowed any sod since.

Only one year did we have an issue, and that was in 2000 when we updated to a 7200 with unit mounted coulters. That spring we had 80 degree, dry weather in late April, and the ground was hard. We had no extra down pressure springs on the planter, and twice the coulters we had to push into the ground with the same springs as we had on the 7000. We ended up removing the no-till unit mounted coulters, and the units went in the ground fine. I think you will find a JD planter will close the trench in most any condition.

No tilling corn into bean stubble is a no-brainer. You will most likely not need any additional coulters or trash whippers, or special closing wheels to do this. We did that next.

Next, we went to no-tilling into bean stubble with 12,000 gallon of semi solid manure to the acre surface applied the fall or winter before. This will work just as well as no manure. Planting into bean stubble, as mentioned, requires NO extra equipment. I WILL SUGGEST, HOWEVER, put 40-50 units of N down with the planter in a 2x2 placement. You can handle the rest of the N application as you see fit, but put a good chunk down close to the row. This helps a lot.

No tilling corn into corn stubble is more challenging. It is best to try to plant between the rows.... we don't use the marker when planting in full corn residue, instead we use last year's row. I would recommend row cleaners in this scenario, and a coulter (I prefer frame mounted, as we have rocks). Again, put 40-50 lb of N down with the planter, near the row.

No-till corn into wheat stubble... the same as above. Be agressive with the row cleaners. Throw the wheat stubble away from the row. Slugs love wheat straw. Plant a cover crop after the wheat.

No-till beans.... it is hard to screw this up. If your land has been no-till for a few years, the worms etc will break down a lot of the residue. We frequently plant beans into 2 years of 200-270 bu corn residue with a 750 drill. No residue management other than I have the drill set up so that no depth wheels run on the stalk residue if I follow the old corn planter tracks. If planting with a corn planter, I would suggest you use the method I described with planting corn after corn.

Other benefits of no-till... more profit. No expensive iron to maintain. We planted through 2014 with 2 4020s. Not cause we had to, but because we could. We went to a larger drill in 2015, and Dad turned 70 (it was suggested he would last longer if I put him in a sound gard) and so now we plant with a 4450 and and a 4455. 1100 acres of corn, bean, alfafa, and wheat. Better yields. We have the best yields in our county. Ask FSA. It isn't meant to brag. It is a fact. Less fuel used. The diesel guy asked me a few years ago when we were going to plant. I told him we were done. He looked disappointed. We can plant with about .7-.75 gal per acre including spraying. We use far more fuel feeding cows, moving manure, and harvesting forage.

Go for it. It will work. Don't cheat on weed control. Put fertilizer close to row in corn. Rotate crops. Pay attention to details. Avoid compaction. It will work. There are plenty on here that will tell you, I tried it years ago, and it didn't work. But it will. Technology has improved since the 80's. And mother nature never tilled. Wildlife surface applied manure. 365 days a year. As farmers, we can never fight nature and win. We need to work with and succeed.

You probably think I am full of SH@#$t, but I am not. Google UW Discovery Farms, and search for Koepke Farms. That is us. Or search Howard Buffett's work for us. Or No-till farmer. Or Successful Farming. Or our Facebook page or labellecheese.com. Or if you email me, I will help if you promise to try.

Good luck,

John
Or email me. We will help you- and it will be better for your land, and better for your pocketbook.

Our location is SE WI.

Reading the responses here confirms my belief about no til. It will work some places all the time, most all places some of the time, but not all places all the time. That being said, I am working on a field of corn now that was notilled into bean stubble that is running right at 180 bu/a. Mostly heavy clay gumbo, but it was dry this spring. For some that might not sound like much, but up here on the edge of northern wis wilderness, its the best I have ever had. Poor little F2 gleaner just crawling along. But in the past I have had stands not much over 50% on notill plantings. Soil conditions were wrong.

Everything you say is true and would apply in most areas. Here we have the nay sayers, but their next door neighbour has been successfully no tilling for years...go figure. It does work, but you cannot go at it half axxxed. I will add one more thing....wait til the soil is dry....if you see your neighbour cultivating, go away for a day, and start the next day. Ben

No till is like religion. Many have different opinions about it. Some will argue it is the best thing there is and others will tell you it is evil all of the time. To me no till just makes raising a good crop too risky. IF the weather is RIGHT then it works great. If the weather is WRONG it can be a train wreck. I can't take that kind of risks on high value ground. The land cost will not let you survive a wipe out very often around here.

You want to see a wipe out in no till around here all you have to do is one of several things. 1) Plant too early and the soil be too cold. The poor seedling vigor will show up all summer long. 2) Plant in a little too wet of ground and have it turn dry. Seed germinates over a months time and the yields are hammered.

Now take bean stubble in May after two weeks of 70 degree days and no till will look like the only way to plant.

All I can say is I have tried it several times over the last 30 years. In soybean stubble it will work fairly regularly. Soybeans in late May or early June will work. Corn stalk ground in early to Mid April may work or may not. It seems to work about 75% of the time around here. The other 25% of the time it can be terrible. It usually is real bad when it does not work.

I can take my tillage practices and produce a good crop 95% of the time. Year in and year out. So I will stick to what has been successful for me on the ground I farm. Your welcome to try any type of practice on your ground/farm. I would hate to tell you what will work or not work on your farm with your practices. In my years of selling equipment I found different things worked on very similar farms while other things would not work. So I just decided to let people try things for themselves.

This topic brings a smile to my face, and I liked JD Sellers comment , "it is like religion". The converted are always out trying to educate the poor dummies that still till or even , dare I say it plough. I see the whole spectrum around me . Cash croppers love no till the most, Because it enables them to get across thousands of acres. Not such a big deal if you have only 100 acres to crop.

We no till sometimes if we are getting late in the season for planting due to extra wet conditions. It doesn't work to well for us. Almost everyone that does not till around here works their ground in three year rotations after corn. Work the ground, plant soybeans. Harvest soybeans, no till wheat. No till corn into the wheat stubble. Work the corn stubble and start over again. Have a neighbor that swears by no till, will not work ground, ever. He did a lot of shares for ground, but many people went with someone else after a couple good years, then many years of declining yields. He had one field tiled last year, one that hadn't been fit in 15 years. The soil behind the tile plow looked like it was boulders as a quarry it was packed so hard. But it was only dirt, no rocks. The landowner is a real loyal guy, but he is old school too, and thinks stuff should be turned over very now and then. He used his old field cultivator and dug the heck out of his field that the farmer had no tilled for so long. Looks pretty good this year. Like you say, it works well year after year some places, but where I live, it doesn't. Most agree a 3 year cycle works best around here if that's how you are going to do it.

We have a 40 acre field that is just about blow sand. The best soybeans I had there were no tilled into corn stalks with a 1590 jd drill. Almost everyone in the area no tills their wheat. Corn is getting more popular. There're some guys that will argue that soil type doesn't matter as long as you have the right set up, especially with cover crops. My wife works for the conservation district, so all I hear about is how we should not till everything and plant cover crops in the summer/fall. She can't tell me how a no till planter will wipe out the 1-2ft ruts the combine left this fall through. It has its place, but saying it could work in all conditions is a stretch.

Never no tilled but the guy down the road does all of his ground. He says the key is to run a subsoiler over the ground at least once every 5 years. They have a schedule of what ground will be subsoiled for what years. His crops seem as good as the next guys.

I'm over on the west side of MN about 25 miles east of Fergus Falls. The soil in the area ranges from sandy loam to clay and can go from one extreme to the other in one field. The guys around me I know who have tried no-till all say the same thing. first year or 2 yields remain the same. Then yields drop. Most of these guys are pretty good operators and pay close attention to yields. Most think that the soil doesn't warm up fast enough when the growing season you can count on goes from early May to mid Sep added to soil compaction is to blame.

Rick

There is probably 90% of soys planted no till around here with the yields always comparable to conventional tillage.Corn still favours some tillage be it mouldboard plow or more recentlyy vertical tillage in the previous fall Figure what that tillage costs you and no til is a no brainer for beans.Myself I have no tilled beans into bean stubble, corn stalks and hay sod and have yet to be disappointed. For the naysayers I would like to see them fall plow some hay ground here and get a crop in the following spring.
One large operation here has not plowed in close to 30 years. They no till soys and wheat and run a coulter arrangement in front of each corn planter row, basically a strip tillage operation.
The clay here is very unforgiving if you work it wet. In that regard the no till wins out.
Located between Sarnia and London Ontario, close the where they patented clay farm land.

I am in Ohio and my township name is clay and from what I have been told they would dig the clay and make the bricks for a house right on the farm. Now about all of the bean stubble is chiseled in fall for corn the following year unless it is put to wheat with about half each way. Corn stalks a lot are no tilled beans into the corn stalks, probably about 3/4 that way. Don't know of anybody notilling corn either in bean ground or sod or wheat stubble. The few fields that I have seen of corn notilled were very poor. Some you could count the stalks in the field just driving past on the road. When I was farming I did hire wheat notilled into bean ground and I think double crop beans into wheat stubble is good as long as there are no weeds in the field. The biggest problem with them notilling beans into corn stalks is they let the weeds take over before planting and do not spray for weeds till after a third of then are ripe and have seeded all the neighbors ground. That is what I call weed tillage or planting.

I have been 100 percent no till beans into corn stalks for the past two years but I played with it for several years prior. The jury is still out but so far my yields have matched the neighbor's yields in tilled soil. Hybrid selection and planting dates and fertility can have an affect though so my comparisons with the neighbors aren't apples to apples.

The one difference I see in no-tilling compared to planting into tilled ground is in no till you have to get off that tractor more often to check out the job the planter is doing. You are adjusting depth more often and messing with the row cleaner depth more often if you want to do a good consistent job of seed placement. My row cleaners are the kind that have the pin going through holes for depth adjustment so I have to sit down on my butt and hold the row cleaner up while I am messing with the pin. This arrangement will be changed this winter!! I have a neighbor who has tried no-till off and on without good results with his stand but he is the kind of guy who is more interested in getting more acres planted per day then anyone else. Someone with that mentality will never be a good no-tiller. Another thing that can affect your stand with no-till is traffic in your field. If you are baling stalks and hauling manure, even in the fall, you will have more trouble getting consistent planting depth the next spring. You want as many stalks standing up as you can get. Stalks flattened and laying horizontal by wheel traffic are harder for the trash whippers to push aside.

My planter is a plain old Deere 7200 vac wing fold with shark tooth row cleaners but nothing else is changed on the planter so far. Next year it will have heavier adjustable down pressure springs for a little better penetration and depth control. I am not going with the fancy air bags though I do have the monitor to control them if I choose to go that route. Bags are too expensive for my acres in my opinion. One problem I did have was the row cleaners lifting the units, affecting the planting depth so I couldn't have the row cleaners down as far as I wanted them to be. Next year will be different in that aspect.

Last spring my beans did not grow as fast as the neighbor's beans that were planted in blacker tilled soil because they were in cooler soil. I was seriously thinking about giving up no-till for awhile back in June but in July they took off and made up for lost time, giving me a little more confidence in trying it again.

The type of row cleaner you use might depend on the type of soil on your farm. The Shark Tooth row cleaners on my planter came off the planter of a farmer who did not like them. He has heavier soil and I think these cleaners lifted the planter more than straight finger cleaners. Also, shark tooth cleaners tend to mud up more in wet spots.

So, if you are the kind of person who doesn't mind fussing with details no-till might work for you. The money I am spending setting up my planter for better no-till performance is less than the cost of working the ground two or three times prior to planting and once the planter is setup, maintenance expense is all that's needed. Like I said before I'm not completely confident in no-tilling yet but I'm not ready to give up.

My neighbor across the fence no-tilled corn into corn stubble last spring and did a very good job. His seed placement was very good. He has a newer Kinze planter with more down pressure and he is just plain good at setting a planter. I don't know if A MInnesota farmer would want to try no-tilling corn into corn stalks though. Minnesota is a farther north and has cooler soil in the spring.